Written by Adilia Watson
Record-breaking temperatures in the Arctic and related increases in rates of permafrost thaw have led to an upsurge in regional fires which are alarming climate scientists worldwide.
The figures are staggering: Verkhojansk, a town in Siberia, reached 38℃ this year – an Arctic record – shattering the previous record of 37.3℃ in 1988, and over the last decade the average temperature in Siberia from January to May was about 10℃ higher than the average from 1980 to 2010. As a result, in Russia alone, 3 million hectares burned in 2019, an overwhelming increase in the already high average of 1.2 million hectares which were burning annually between 1990 and 1999.
Remarkably, during June 2019, fires in Greenland emitted enough carbon dioxide to surpass the total annual emissions for Sweden. In addition, Alaska and Canada have been experiencing similar anomalies during fire seasons in the past two years.
Mike Alcalde – an environmental documentary filmmaker – says that even by current exaggerated climate measures, what we are seeing in the Arctic is unprecedented:
“Our environmental emergency is not a vague future event, it is happening live, now, across the world, and nowhere so palpably and definitively is it more visible than in our Arctic regions.”
Even though forest fires are traditionally a common aspect of the forest’s ecology, the rate and scale of these fires have not been seen before, an activity thought to be related to permafrost melt, which in itself creates a positive feedback loop that increases the earth’s temperature by releasing carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere. Scientists are seeing these effects already: a collective study by Jason E. Box at the Geological Survey of Denmark states that Arctic temperatures have increased by about 2.4 times faster than the rest of the Northern Hemisphere from 1971-2017.
Aggravators such as global warming and permafrost melt are disrupting the fragile environment in the Arctic. If the fire season continues at this rate, the world will devastate its reserves of permafrost and generate a related climate spiral which has already begun.
Adilia Watson has an educational background in environmental studies. She regularly writes on topics including biodiversity, waste management, and animals.
